The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3818, 20 May 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1875.

Owb morning contemporaries have settled the present crisis. Mr Keid and Mr Bastings have only got to do what they are told, like good boys. Even an index expurgatoriaua has not been wanting—the forbidden ring into which the sub-Execudve framers must not break under pains and penalties. The position is one of extreme delicacy, and can by no means be easily adjusted. It was rendered not a whit the easier by Mr Fish’s illjudged and intemperate speech the other evening. It might have occurred, even to Mr that he has plenty of odium attaching to him, and to all he does and has done of late, without drawing down upon himself angry feelings from other sources. We did not understand that on ' uesday evening he was enunciating an opposition policy with the consent of his leader. Why, therefore, he attacked the High School and the University we are at a loss to understand. If there is one living example in our midst at the present tine of the necessity for such institutions, Mr Fish himself is that example. With educ. in. and the results that higher instruction inevitably bring to all who have natural abilities, the top round of the public ladder which M r Fish is ; o reach would not have ended at a City Mayoralty. We do not go the length of one of our contemporaries in saying that no Government could stand in which the rash member for Dunedin held a saat, but undoubtedly it would be so if his position were not a subordinate one. If Mr Bastings succeeds in ormiug a Government, it will be expected that he will take the earliest opportunity to repudiate the uncivilised doctrines Mr Fish Ups given utteiance to. If he does so, and his would-be colleague swallows it, he is clearly entitled to a portfolio, and would superintend a practical department with advantage to the Province. The occupants of the other offices will probably be looked to more for their debating power than anything else. Mr Bastings does not shine in that respect. His attitude on late occasions as a speaker has been more like that of an intending suicide than an independent and straightforward member. If it be true, as rumored, that the Solicitorship willj be disconnected from the Government benches, and Mr Sumpter represent the North, while Mr Wood occupies a similar position for the South, it will be sem that the debating talent will not be conspicuously